Artists who put Ed Snowden bust on NYC monument are ticketed

The Associated Press

Published
9:23 am EDT, Thursday, May 7, 2015

FILE - This April 6, 2015, file photo provided by ANIMALNewYork shows a bust of the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden which was snuck overnight into Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park, in New York. Attorney Ronald Kuby, the lawyer for the mystery artists who affixed the bust of Edward Snowden to the New York park’s war monument, says they’ve been ticketed but not criminally charged. Kuby says the three got summonses for being in a park after hours, a non-criminal violation. less

FILE - This April 6, 2015, file photo provided by ANIMALNewYork shows a bust of the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden which was snuck overnight into Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park, ... more

Photo: (Aymann Ismail/ANIMALNewYork Via AP, File)

Photo: (Aymann Ismail/ANIMALNewYork Via AP, File)

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FILE - This April 6, 2015, file photo provided by ANIMALNewYork shows a bust of the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden which was snuck overnight into Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park, in New York. Attorney Ronald Kuby, the lawyer for the mystery artists who affixed the bust of Edward Snowden to the New York park’s war monument, says they’ve been ticketed but not criminally charged. Kuby says the three got summonses for being in a park after hours, a non-criminal violation. less

FILE - This April 6, 2015, file photo provided by ANIMALNewYork shows a bust of the former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden which was snuck overnight into Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park, ... more

Photo: (Aymann Ismail/ANIMALNewYork Via AP, File)

Artists who put Ed Snowden bust on NYC monument are ticketed

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NEW YORK >> The mystery artists who put a bust of Edward Snowden on a Revolutionary War memorial have been ticketed but not criminally charged, and the city has given back their confiscated statue, their lawyer said Wednesday.

The 4-foot-tall, 100-pound likeness of the exiled National Security Agency secret-leaker appeared last month on a monument in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park. Parks officials ordered it removed within hours, and police investigated the unauthorized artistic statement.

The inquiry ended with two activist artists getting $50 summonses for being in a park after hours, a noncriminal violation, said attorney Ronald Kuby, who wouldn’t identify the two. Authorities haven’t released their names.

“We’re extremely grateful that the city has reconfirmed its commitment to the arts, even those that are unusual and offbeat,” Kuby said. He said the artists collected the statue from authorities Wednesday.

The police department didn’t immediately respond to inquiries about the matter.

Snowden is living in exile in Russia after divulging the secret U.S. government collection of phone records, among other intelligence gathering. The fiberglass-reinforced cement rendering of his face was affixed to a monument that honors American captives who died on British prison ships during the Revolutionary War.

The bust’s creators said in a statement Wednesday that they wanted to “help the public have an important national debate about mass surveillance” and provide an alternative view of Snowden, whom they feel the media have vilified.

Police noted last month that the statue was erected “without permission or authority.”

The artists have said they’d like to get permission to exhibit it legally through a temporary art-in-parks program. The Parks Department said Wednesday it hadn’t received such an application, at least as yet.

In the meantime, a New York gallery, Postmasters, has said it wants to display the statute at an upcoming show.